The Light
by AlexLone
Summary: What happens when you are on your own and things go wrong? Like colleagues.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: NCIS:LA and its characters are obviously not mine.

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_Is this it?_

_Am I going to die?_

_My luck ran out?_

Funny how when things go really bad, you get less fancy in your thoughts. I always thought when it was my time, something big would happen, life flashing before my eyes, highlights of some 30 odd years or a revelation would occur to me.

Now as it happens, all I can think about it is the end and if this is it?

Probably it is, I mean I'm stuck in a box about the size of a coffin, its way too hot outside and the few holes in the box are just enough and no more to give me enough air not to die from suffocation.

It is also dark in here.

Just like a lot of the last nine months, I now find myself cursing the day I got involved with NCIS. Their bigfooting, superiority complexes and the need to put their agenda as so much more important than everyone else.

I wouldn't have believed it would be because of them, I've ended up here now. Three months I've been back at the behest of LAPD doing an undercover operation into a multi-faceted organisation, human trafficking, drugs, guns, you name it they were into it. The organisation was run as a business as ruthless as Wall Street and the street gangs of LA. They blended their legitimate business with the illegitimate so well that no one could touch them from the outside.

LAPD asked me to go under, to infiltrate and get into a position of trust. That was three months ago, three months of hard work, disturbing work in a lot of cases. Though through it all I had a purpose, a focus, to put the bad guys away and go home alive.

Why did I going back willing to LAPD for this? Well for one I still work for them, no matter what Hetty or the others think. I'm still an LAPD cop and when they call I answer. Though if I'm honest, I was going to contact them anyway, things change and maybe I was going to quit being liaison anyway.

Why could the driver of this truck not have stayed on a proper road, these dirt tracks just bounce everything around. In this small box, that means plenty of head knocks and bruises. Don't know why I'm bothered, I'll be dead when they stop. Hopefully it will be a quick shot to the head, but knowing these guys it won't be.

Maybe it all started going wrong after the events with Sidorov, I didn't handle the aftermath particularly well. Maybe I closed off a lot but in my defence it's not really the kind of thing you just shake off. Coupled with the pressure to be the old Deeks, it just wasn't working for me. The glances, the comments being made when people thought I could not hear them, it was all getting a bit much. Then just when I thought I was getting some equilibrium, Blye gets sent halfway round the world on a secret mission that supposedly only she has the skills for. While I called her Wonder Woman, it has to be said that there are many agents with expansive skillsets, Callen leaps to mind though he has plenty of his own problems. And it seems to have been Hetty that made the decision after putting it off for so long to send her. It may have been a good thing, but things didn't go well for me. And it seems a lot of it was a mole hunt and sniper mission. Well I could name about twenty agents just from looking at NCIS files who could have handled that mission. But mine is not to question why, good for her, getting some recognition for her skills.

She is a great technical operator as they call them. I know Sam and Callen think she is a natural operator but coming from my perspective too much of it is technical learning. While she is convincing in her short term undercovers, she doesn't imbue them with the life necessary for long term work. She has never had to, she thinks because she lives her life where she lies about who she is to others she can do it but at the end of the day she gets to retreat and be herself. Long term undercover isn't like that, you have to be the person not just wear it like an outfit. I thought Callen at least would have understood this aspect but then I suppose working all over the world has its advantages for long term undercover work. Working in LA, you are always on knife edge, as you never know when you will run into someone who knows you and if you aren't being that person you slip too easily. They may mock LAPD's lack of cover creation, but without the backup of a federal agency it forces their undercovers to be really good at what they do.

Look at me, some deeper thoughts appearing as I move towards my death. Personally I was hoping for the flash sequence of surfing or the last ten issues of Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions, something entertaining at least.

Maybe it was good that she went, it let me view myself in a different light, forced me to realise things about myself. I was good as a cop, for me it is more than a job or title, it is a way of living, aiming to take the bad guys off the street and making things a little better. Maybe it's not the whole saving the country thing of NCIS OSP but sometimes we get so focussed on the big picture stuff that details and people get missed.

It really started to hit the fan when she returned though. I had looked forward to it but when the reality happened, a few weeks later I couldn't stop myself from thinking why couldn't she stay away. It reminded me of a pop-country song with a bit of the lyrics being:

_"Well I'll admit that I was wrong_

_You said "I miss you"_

_Oh yes I do_

_Honey, I miss you being gone"_

I hate myself for thinking it, but at the same time at least then I would have had some semblance of reality as I knew it then. I understand her mission was a success, and that is a good thing, but she lost or gained something over there. I'm not sure which but for me it was bad. I went from being a partner, an equal in the team to being the tag along or towards the end desk and paperwork support. Why did I keep coming back? Why did I still look for affection there?

I wish this little road trip was over, don't think my head can take the hits or the heat in this box.

Everything had to be done her way when we worked together, admittedly not really much new there, but the constant condescension in her voice and manner were too much. The whole 'you are not an agent' thing starting cropping up from her, then Callen and Sam (who I thought I'd been getting along with better) started making little comments as well.

Maybe I'm sensitive, maybe they were wrong, but it didn't really contribute to a good working environment. Nell had been still coming out in the field with me but then that stopped and suddenly she was going out in the field with Blye. I asked Nell why the change, Blye wouldn't really give me the time of day now. Nell didn't know, she had just been told that she was to partner up with Blye more and not with me.

I found out by accident, overhearing a conversation that Blye had gone to Hetty and demanded that Nell be sent out with her and not me. The general gist of the demand was that Nell should get mentoring and experience from a proper real agent and not just a LAPD cop liaison. I don't know what the reply from Hetty was but I do know Granger and Vance were name-dropped by Blye into the demand. And well it went from there.

Gradually I was turned into a proper liaison, not getting out into the field, Nell taking my place. Nell is a great person but she is not really an undercover agent, she has skills but the move to fieldwork takes more than that. She had been learning and I thought I had been doing a good job, obviously the powers that be don't want her corrupted by the cop tag-along. I know I'm not an agent and there were things people like Blye, Callen and Sam would need to instruct her on properly not the on-the-job education I have.

Eric tried to help me but he and I differ, he is happy to stay in Ops, I'm not. I'm also not happy with the fact that Nell started to pick up on the attitude of Blye et al towards me. Even when I tried to help her, she looked down at me (a real feat for someone I tower over, but then maybe Hetty taught her that) and promptly mentioned that one of the others had a different way of doing it, the NCIS way.

Hetty seemed to be oblivious to the effects all this was having on me, or maybe this is revenge for me not signing the application to become an agent when she offered. Doesn't stop her from treating me like one of hers when it suits, taking my bike away from me. Amazingly she hasn't taken a bike away from Blye but then Blye is the golden child of the moment. I wonder what happened with that bike, I lost a lot of money there. Mind you, money is the least of my worries at the moment. As they say, you can't take it with you.

When LAPD called with a long term assignment I jumped at the chance. I was up and out of the Mission before I'd even finished the call. I typed an email to Hetty as I was on the phone and sent it before getting out of there.

I won't bore you with everything that has gone on since that day, suffice to say I've lived the life of one Adam Musgrave, business consultant to the stars of the underworld as I like to fashion it. Money laundering, shipping, deals, enforcement, you name it I'll do it or arrange it. I started out freelancing for several organisations, but eventually my targets bought my exclusive services for themselves, not that they gave me much of a choice in the matter.

Maybe I should have haggled for a better deal - though if I'd done that I may not have gotten as far as this box.

For the last three months, I haven't been Marty Deeks, I was Adam Musgrave - completely out of contact with law enforcement save for a weekly intelligence dead drop. Long term isolation covers are hard, but I think I needed it, it was good to be someone else. I just wish it could have been someone nicer and less criminal. Too many nights have I spent washing the dirt of the day off my hands, being an enforcer is not a fun job for the victim or the enforcer. The worst was when it was the people being smuggled through the operation that had to be disciplined. I hated it, but I knew enough to do it so it looked really bad but wouldn't leave long term damage. At least not physically anyway.

How NCIS managed to stumble onto this organisation I don't know, but god I wish they hadn't. Blyes and Jones appeared in the 'offices' one day, I was busy my back to them until I turned round. It was small, almost unnoticeable but this crew didn't get where they were by chance. The point man, also the third in charge of it all, saw the slight widening stare of the eyes from Blye, the gasp from Jones. Why would you send such an inexperienced agent into this operation, I know they have to learn but not with this group?

The point man, Joel, picked it up straight away. He shifted their little meeting to a small room. I don't know what was said but after about twenty minutes, they were shuffled out and sent away with a message that they would be contacted when the operation was secure. I think I knew then that I was blown but I played it to the hilt.

"Seems you aren't what you appear to be, Musgrave"

They had blown me.

"Our new friends know you as Max Gentry, or at least that's the name you gave them. I'll have to thank them. I knew a man inside, someone named Max Gentry helped put him there. My colleague Mark had a quick chat with a friendly cop and a few moments later. Max Gentry turns out isn't really real, and neither is Adam Musgrave."

This was bad, all around the operation was being piled up into trucks. The merchandise of all types readied and loaded. This operation would be gone in ten more minutes. I hoped someone had eyes on this place. LAPD knew about it but long term observation was tricky and I was still a day away from a drop. Maybe damned NCIS had the place under observation.

"Turns out Max Gentry is really an LAPD detective. I'll need to thank my new friends without them spilling that name has helped both of us, I'll need to make sure they know LAPD is looking at them. Mr Deeks, sorry Detective Deeks."

This was bad, really really bad. I tried to convince him that he was wrong but unfortunately the cover was blown. Two of the men in the warehouse tried to grab me. I got away for a time, but the numbers were against me and someone clocked me round the back of the head. Then I woke up in a box on the road trip to who the hell knows.

NCIS, Blye and Jones couldn't you have found some other operation to investigate. It'll be my fault though, I didn't keep NCIS updated or something, I didn't do my liaison job, no I was out doing my real job not the paper pushing crap they stuck me with. Couldn't you have sent in other agents?

_Is this it?_

_Am I going to die?_

_My luck ran out?_

After all that I'm back to three questions.

The truck stops suddenly, I'm so tired, I can't keep my eyes open or is it just getting darker?

The truck tailgate is noisily pulled down.

My box is pulled out of the truck and dumped on the ground. The world goes dark.

_Am I alive?_

_Do you think when you are dead?_

All I can now think about is will me dying be noticed? Or will I just be another cop lost to duty?

_I'm not dead yet, the box is moving._

I can hear voices, so faint but I can hear them.

I hear a noise close by.

_Then is the box opening?_

The light is blinding, so bright, so warm and something lifts me towards it.

_I'm going towards the light._

* * *

_**Lyrics from Miss You Being Gone - The Band Perry.**_


	2. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer: As First Chapter._

* * *

_I hate federal agencies._

_So smug and superior._

_So convinced of their own importance._

I know these thoughts are unfair in many ways, federal agencies are needed to help with cross-jurisdiction and specialist crimes but at the same time, do they have to screw with everything.

_30 minutes and everything is going to hell in a handbasket._

I knew things had been going too well on this operation, Deeks had been under for three months and the information he had been getting back to us was a goldmine. Another few weeks and we would be able to move in on the core of the gang and take it down permanently.

That's what I thought 30 minutes ago.

Getting Deeks back for this operation had been a gift, his ability to be the person was unparalleled in the department even if he was a pain in the ass. He may not have had many fans in LAPD but everyone could agree that he could get the job done.

He was my initial choice for this operation, but with the way that Lange woman runs her office I was doubtful I would get him. I bypassed her this time, I had seen how he was slowly drowning in that environment over the past few months in our regular update meetings. He may work at that office but I'm still his boss.

The fact that paperwork was being completely on time and briefings were being prepared in advance told me everything I needed to know. Deeks while he could be efficient much preferred putting things off until absolutely necessary. As a lieutenant in charge of him, this infuriated me, but as a fellow police officer I could understand the need to be out and doing the job on the street. One thing I hate about my position is that I don't get out as much as I would like. Being former army and working my way up the department has taught me that sometimes you need someone to shield the on the street folk from the ones in upper management who have been away too long from action. At this stage in life, I can do that and still get out on the street a bit.

I digress though as it was surprising that when I called him about this operation that before the phone call had finished he was on his way in, emails already sent to say he was going on an undercover for LAPD. I asked him when he got here how he got that woman to agree so quickly.

I have to say his answer shocked me, he simply stated that I was his boss and when I bellowed he answered. No matter what else he was, firstly he was an LAPD cop. I have been awaiting his resignation to become a fed for a couple of years, so to hear this was a surprise. And he admittedly he had just emailed Lange to say he had been recalled and hadn't actually faced her. This I could understand. She was unnerving, even to seasoned officers like myself.

The briefing went smoothly, Deeks contributing his own flair to the undercover role we had started to prepare. The operation would begin in a few days, but the groundwork had to be laid out for him, the players identified. I was a little worried that this was the first long undercover in a while for him. Most of the work that NCIS office has been doing has been short-term, in and out covers, a very different beast to long term work. After ten minutes I realised that Deeks must have been waiting for something like this, something that played to one of his strengths. He was fully in the flow of things and couldn't be distracted, something you wouldn't really think about him with his tangentially approach to conversations and life. His focus was admirable, even ignoring the mobile constantly going off in his pocket. After four missed calls, he switched it off and continued with the gang task force.

I knew when he did that, that the next set of calls would be fired at me. At this point I excused myself to check in with some other detectives about another case. It wasn't just an excuse, I did have other cases to check on but I didn't need the upcoming 'discussion' with NCIS to impact on the operation preparation.

_I didn't get back to the planning for over an hour._

Deeks threw himself into the operation, within a week of starting he was already making a name for himself as Adam Musgrave. A business consultant to the underworld of crime he called himself, and he was good at being Adam. Officers began regularly complained about how related gang busts were failing or merchandise was going missing, witnesses refusing to cooperate with them. This happens a lot anyway, it's the nature of the beast, but once Musgrave came on the scene it happened even more.

Admittedly, the cases he interfered were all plants or carefully selected crime groups that we could get another way. Deeks was heavily involved in the initial planning stages of this, he had to make his persona an asset to the criminal element.

_I sometimes worry that one day he will go under and never come back. Pain in the ass though he is, if he ever went to the wrong side, he could do a lot of damage._

The plan was moving along nicely, Musgrave had managed to get himself hired exclusively by the targets. Unfortunately, it hadn't been easy and some of our irregular observation posts had passed along images that said it hadn't been pleasant or painless for Deeks. I worried this could flash back for him to the torture events and Sidorov. The Lange woman and her outfit had redacted a lot of exact detail about the operation but I have my own friends in high places and go some of the after actions reports. The operation though successful in getting the nukes was a ballsup. Too much luck was involved in it, though I'm sure NCIS will say it was their superior efforts. Anyone can be 'superior' with the resources and training they get, that one office of NCIS in LA has a far higher budget than most local city PDs I'd wager. After this operation I'd have to sit Deeks down and see if he wanted to come back full time to LAPD. With his experience and achievements, I could get him assigned to a good task force, possibly leading it or maybe a joint operations and training position. God knows, we need help in training undercovers and Deeks is really good. A few months ago, I thought I'd have to pry him away from there, from Lange, Blye and the rest but something had changed, he appeared beaten down and eager to get the long-term op.

While long-term observation on the targets was hard, we still attempted it, but it was a bit piece meal, a combination of short-term undercovers on the street, regular patrol cars, all of whom knew about the targets but not exactly what the operation was. They didn't know there was an undercover in place. It seems harsh but it was the best for everyones safety.

For the last week a warning bell had been going off in the back of my mind, the last intel drop from Deeks had mentioned the gang getting a new supplier with some top class weapons. This worried me as a theft had been reported from a naval base of weapons, not publicly mind you, just on channels outside the public knowledge. This introduction of new players was going to be hard to account for, and I couldn't get much out of NCIS about the theft. I kept getting quoted operational security, but they were investigating it. Investigating it,my arse, damned federal agents went around like bulls in a china shop most of the time with shootouts, car chases and explosions. And the local PDs got the brunt of the complaints, especially for that office, which does not 'exist' officially.

Hopefully if the operation and the investigation crossed paths, we could wrap things up quicker, more evidence and more players meant more chance someone would flip on someone else.

_30 minutes ago, I got an automated alert from Records that someone had been checking on Deeks and the alias Max Gentry._

The system doesn't connect the two, but the problem with the system is that people put stuff into the system and people have memories and can make connections. This worried me intensely, why is the Gentry alias being checked? He isn't using it.

A message appeared in my inbox. The message indicated the new players had arrived at the offices of the targets. Today we had a group of street artists nearby and had inserted two officers to do some observation today.

Another message appeared. This one had some surveillance photos attached. With a sinking feeling I opened the files. My hand moved automatically to the phone. The timestamp on the photos was 40 minutes ago.

As I looked at the images, I grabbed the desk phone with one hand and pulled out my mobile with another. The desk phone speed dial for NCIS was angrily stabbed with a finger as I attempted to text an emergency message on the mobile. NCIS couldn't give an update, they were out of contact with agents Blye and Jones but they could confirm now that they were investigating the stolen arms.

_Dammit all to hell._

Another message appear on my phone. The new players, now identified by me as the NCIS agents had left the building unharmed.

Another message, rapid arrival and departure of vehicles from vicinity, loud noises of removals and shredding going on in building.

Working both the mobile and the phone I quickly attempted to get all units I could to the area, making sure the undercovers outside did nothing until support arrived.

I couldn't get a hold of Deeks, I had his covers mobile but it wasn't responding.

Within the 30 minutes I had managed to get six squad cars out to the location. A helicopter was in the air and monitoring all the departing target vehicles passing on the information to dispatch for them to be followed.

Now I arrived at the scene. The gang had left quickly but efficiently, nothing was left behind. And Deeks was gone.

I got a detective to coordinate the capture of all identified target vehicles. I could only hope we could get to Deeks in time.

_I hate federal agencies._

_So smug and superior._

_So convinced of their own importance._

How these thoughts kept coming back to me as four NCIS agents approached our picket line. My phone went, that Lange woman no doubt.

I walked away, climbing into a police cruiser, trying to coordinate the capture of the gang now in the wind while trying to ensure the safe recovery of Detective Deeks.

The lights on the cruiser flashed incessantly as I awaited news from the chasing squad cars.

_God, I wish I could turn out the lights._

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_AN: I appreciate the reviews people have left, it was interesting to see how people are interpreting the words.._


	3. Chapter 3

_Disclaimer: Don't own NCIS:LA or characters. Quotes from poems aren't mine but from people far more eloquent than I._

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_"Do not go gentle into that good night, _

_Old age should burn and rave at close of day; _

_Rage, rage against the dying of the light."_

Amazing how poems come back at the end of the day to you, I remember the poem by Dylan Thomas, "Do not go gentle into that good night". Now have we sent a colleague into that night?

_I hope we haven't._

I say colleague because now we can't call him friend. We haven't treated him like a friend in a long time. Maybe Eric, but Eric can only do so much, only one person against the force of ambivalence and condescension on this team. I'm ashamed to say we all got drawn in. It wasn't always this bad, was it?

I think of better times and its hard. So much has happened and so little chance to process it all in the last nine months. He is not blameless in it all, he let himself get sidelined and then he took off three months ago. I know, I know, it was a job, LAPD 'recalled' him. Eric knew better, I pulled the information out of him, knowing that up there he watched everything. He may not be a field agent, and never wants to be one, but give him his cameras and computers and he will find out nearly anything. Deeks had been out the door before the call had finished, his emails to Hetty done less than two minutes into the call he received from LAPD. Why did he feel the need to run like that?

_I guess I already know._

For me it all started going off the rails when Kensi returned. We were all happy that she had returned to us unharmed and in good spirits. The time she was away had been unusual to say the least. I was out in the field a lot with Deeks. This was an extended foray into the field for me and working with Deeks I felt a little less pressure. He was a bit wound up in some ways, like my safety, that I wasn't Kensi but in a lot of other ways he helped me, he was able to allow me to learn. I often wondered why in some cases he almost deferred to me, I thought maybe because that is what he is used to having to do with Kensi. I like the woman but my goodness she doesn't half like getting her own way all the time. Then I slowly realised that Deeks was letting me take the lead in places where I obviously knew things or understood what people were talking about better. Talking to engineers or scientists he let me take the lead, it was obvious after I realised that he was letting me translate for him and relying on my expertise to say whether or not they were telling the truth in some cases. It may seem like a small thing but it does help boost the confidence. Maybe I was getting a bit too confident at the end. In other places, he took over, his easy going nature and charm allowing him to get witnesses and targets to open up to him. Or just working through an investigation, his police training coming through. We tend to forget that even though he is an undercover specialist, he is also a detective and even when working as liaison he has to work cases with LAPD. Maybe that was part of the problem to for the others.

Kensi returned and I expected it all to go back to the way it was, their flirting and what-not, and I would return to my intelligence analyst duties. I was in some ways happy to go back, I missed the challenges it presented to my mind, field work is great but I like nothing more than a good puzzle. My not so inner nerd coming to the fore of my personality.

As Kensi was reintegrated to the team, I was still accompanying Deeks on investigations. I should note that Callen and Sam were helping Deeks to train me in many areas that I needed to brush up on. Sam was an excellent hand-to-hand tutor, Callen was gifted at many things that he helped me with and Deeks rounded out things. The three of them were encouraging and helpful. Their keenness to continue to involve in fieldwork made me just a bit proud I have to say.

_I wonder what would have happened if things hadn't changed so drastically._

Looking back it started the first time out with Deeks and Kensi, how she would pass over his suggestions, talk down to him, at one point telling him to shut up in front of a witness. Yet I made the same suggestion in slightly different words and it was taken up by her, I was told it was a wonderful idea. A blind man could have seen the eye roll from Deeks, which just pissed of Kensi even more. I however was pleased as punch, even if I knew the idea had been from Deeks. I should have wondered after this happened a few times if the effect of putting Deeks as the junior partner in a threesome, below someone who had little field experience, contributed to things playing out as they did. Deeks had continued his tutoring in fieldwork during this time, but Kensi kept interjecting over obscure and tiny details about how NCIS does it versus LAPD. Deeks for the first few times commented on this, but eventually he just couldn't be bothered.

_Funny how up till then no one had an issue with the work Deeks had been doing._

The bombshell came not long later when Hetty informed us that Deeks would be remaining in the office while the rest of the team went out in the field. I would like to say that this was met with protest but the only one to protest was Deeks and he was shut down by Hetty before he could start. Callen and Sam took it in stride, made a comment to Deeks about it who basically told them to go screw themselves, that was the only bit that made them blink. I was just going along with the flow, happy at recognition of my growing skills. Kensi didn't seem the least bit shocked about it, almost happy that it was said. After that Kensi took over all of my training from the others, Deeks firstly then Callen and Sam. Sam and Callen seemed to take this far too much in stride. I would find out later more about this. Deeks was just pissed off about it. I know in the weeks that followed Eric tried to help him adapt, but it wasn't the same, Deeks was a field worker and even with the field work he got from LAPD he was suffocating in the office.

_Was he always an outsider?_

Looking back now, I wonder if we always treated him as an outsider. It is the small things that are telling, for example, we all call each other by our first names, except Deeks and Callen. Callen mainly because its a sore reminder that he doesn't know his first name and even then same calls him G a fair bit. Why do we persist in calling Deeks, Deeks and not his first name, rarely did I hear Kensi call him Marty even when they were getting close. I wonder what happened there as well, as once Kensi returned, ice water was poured all over that relationship. Then once that had dried Kensi proceeded to burn whatever bridges were left. Is it really any wonder he was eager to leave for a real work assignment?

I don't think I realised how much I enjoyed having him around, working and training with him. I also miss training with Callen and Sam. Kensi is a great agent, has done many training courses and is generally as Deeks called her 'Bad Ass Blye' but one thing she is not is a teacher. My god, I wish I was training with the others. Kensi instructs and she expects you to pick it up immediately and her way. Now that may have worked for her but it doesn't work for me. She also isn't that sympathetic about it. I want to be trained by the others who all have their own techniques but allow me to develop my own way of doing stuff. Take hand-to-hand combat for example, Kensi just throws techniques she uses at me and expects me to do them. Newsflash, I'm eight inches shorter, I wasn't given the tall athletic frame she has that adapts to all these combat techniques but she expects me to do them as she does them. It just doesn't work like that, I sometimes wonder how she would react if I trained her in some technical task the same way. And it is not like people can't adapt their techniques for different physiques, Sam who is as different in body type from me as you can get with his sizes and musculature had no issues with showing me different ways of doing combat, showing me his way and then helping me to figure out how to do it. Maybe it is because he has had a background where training others was part of it that helps him, but Callen does the same with other things adapting to my learning styles and skills. Maybe they are just at a point in life where they are comfortable with their skillsets and are able to adapt them. Deeks was similar although he always started with what I knew about something and made analogies to other things to help me. Kensi just doesn't work as a trainer.

I think that this was one of the things that caused me to react badly to Deeks in the aftermath of his 'benching'. I came off snippy and angry a lot of the time to him, even when he tried to help but it was the pressure being put on me to succeed and do it a certain way. I can cope with pressure but this felt different, I was trying to be molded in a way I can't be molded and I lashed out at people who tried to help me. Eric felt my anger a fair bit as well for similar reasons. Maybe part of it is that I inhabit a space similar to Deeks sitting between two worlds, for Deeks it's LAPD and NCIS and for me, it's analyst and field operative. The pair of us neither wholly one thing nor the other but both.

The annoyance the team had towards Deeks grew as our level of cooperation and general welcome from LAPD fell. And it declined even further after he went on assignment. Much as we may have mocked before about how poor a liaison he was, what with a lot of LAPD not liking him, he did do his job smoothing things over in the background. I don't think I realised that he really was working two jobs while at NCIS, Eric clued me in on this. I also didn't realise how much the 'blue wall' existed and it was a thing that separated the federal agencies from the police departments. Gossip exists everywhere and somehow the treatment of Deeks had filtered down to the rank and file, if I were a betting woman, I'd put my money on Bates having whispered something in certain ears to ensure things got out. I noted that the level of hostility varied depending on which of us was present. Callen and I encountered far less resistance than when Sam or Kensi were present. I don't know what to make of that but I do know that Bates, even though he considers Deeks a pain in the ass, looked out for his men and hasn't been happy about the injuries and treatment of Deeks.

_When we screw up, we royally screw up._

I don't know what to think when I saw Deeks in that office, he looked so similar to before but with a hard edge and arrogance about him. When he turned round, I couldn't help but recognise him and that was a reaction that the targets picked up on. I'd never had to deal with this, and I don't think I handled it well. I don't think Kensi handled it that well either as she reacted as well. Deeks for his part didn't even seem to flinch.

I don't quite remember clearly what happened next but I know our contact took us into another room and was asking about our business. Kensi and I were a marine and civil contractor respectively who could supply arms to the targets. We had capitalised on a recent theft of arms using it as a pretence to get here. No intelligence had said that LAPD was looking into this group but in hindsight, an organisation like this was likely under several law enforcement eyes. And we did not think to ask LAPD about on-going operations involving this group. The target had gone on to ask how we knew his man. This should have sent up warning bells when he didn't give a name. It is an old trick to see if both parties knew the same identity. We fell for it, saying we knew Gentry giving some other information on how we knew him. The man left the room for a few minutes coming back saying that his boss was interested in our deal but that another matter had come up and we would have to reschedule. Kensi tried to get him to reconsider but he was adamant.

He marched us out, giving us information that he would contact us when things were settled. I think we knew at that point trouble was about to occur. Neither of us had comms on us, the targets were too efficient to be bugged like that and had stipulated that no mobile phones or computer equipment were to be brought to the meet.

No sooner had we got to our vehicle, than chatter came through from Eric that an emergency call had gone out to LAPD units about the targets. The targets were packing up and shifting out. In a hurry. Orders came to us to hang back and let LAPD take the lead, our covers were not to be jeopardised. This came straight from Granger. The tone of the order was enough without hearing his voice as well.

_Deeks was in trouble._

I don't know how Kensi was taking it. I didn't want to look. I wasn't coping well. Either she would be breaking apart or she would be completely indifferent. I don't know which would be worse for me.

Eric was relaying information about the gangs flit out of the office. LAPD was tracking the vehicles via ground and air; Eric was subtly interjecting information from Kaleidoscope to their radio network to help them.

Confirmation came in that Deeks was gone. The tracking of the vehicles had turned into a manhunt, all vehicles were to be captured and suspects taking in for questioning, resistance to be met with force, officer in danger.

Sam and Callen had arrived by now and with the operation completely blown, we were ordered to assist LAPD with the retrieval of Deeks. We approach the crime scene tape; LAPD blocked our path. We tried to get the attention of Bates, tried to get Hetty to contact him but he was either ignoring us, concentrating on finding Deeks, catching the targets or possibly all of the above. LAPD were stubbornly blocking our path not matter how much we tried to explain that we were federal agents and here to help. One of the street artists we had seen on the way to the meet was part of the group holding people back, a LAPD badge slung round their neck. They knew what had happened.

_Did we send a man to his death? Was it chance?_

The poem of Tennyson came to mind, was it we who had blundered?

_"Forward, the Light Brigade!"_

_Was there a man dismay'd?_

_Not tho' the soldier knew__ Someone had blunder'd:_

_Theirs not to make reply,_

_Theirs not to reason why,_

_Theirs but to do and die:_

_Into the valley of Death__ Rode the six hundred._

* * *

AN: Thanks for the reviews. Again it is interesting to see reactions from people, I'm not sure how to interpret some of them, but still welcome.

_Quotes from the poems:_

_Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas_

_The Charge of the Light Brigade by Lord Tennyson_


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